Part 14

The third Prime Minister of the Commonwealth was, and still is, the chosen of the organised democrats of the continent. Careful observation of Mr Watson, both in and out of Parliament, impels the writer to the reflection that Nature intended him to be undistinguished. The reasons for coming to this conclusion are not far to seek. To begin with, Mr Watson has no aggressive, or specially assertive characteristics, whether physical or mental. He has not the gift of dazzling beauty on the one hand, nor the still more useful gift of excessive ugliness on the other. In appearance he is just an ordinary, good-looking, well-set, upright man. In times of crisis there is nothing so calculated to help its possessor as fanaticism; and Mr Watson cannot boast of being a fanatic. Fortune was never kind enough to him to treat him very unkindly. He was never assisted in his campaign on behalf of Labour by any act of injustice or sense of gross personal wrong at the hands of privileged persons. No friendly capitalist helped to make him a statesman by turning his wife and family out of doors. He has had a few ups and downs, but they have been of a minor sort. Undoubtedly it was the intention of Nature that he should go through life without attracting too much notice, that he should set up type and cultivate a garden, and assist in his spare moments at those illuminating debates that shake to their foundations the suburbs of Carlton and of Wooloomooloo.

These original designs have been upset. Certain political currents took possession of Mr Watson, and he could not get away from them. As a matter of fact, he did not wish to get away from them. He was shrewd enough to realise what an important bearing they might have on the future of a continent, and incidently on the future of Chris. Watson. The Federation movement was a timely one, so far as he was concerned. The inauguration of the Commonwealth Parliament brought with it the division of political parties into Free Trade and Protectionist, with neither of the two sides sufficiently strong to crush or always to out-vote the other. It was a great opportunity for a Labour party, which did not care two constitutional straws about either Free Trade or Protection, to hold the balance of power, and practically to usurp the functions of Government. But the Labour party wanted a leader. It wanted a man who would be sufficiently strong for the purpose--and it was a tremendously important purpose--but not one who would err from excess of strength. It did not want a notorious man, or a violent man, or a man whose name would cause any sort of alarm. It did not want a man who had been too extensively advertised in connection with socialistic movements in the past. It did not want a distinguished anarchist or a social outlaw. It wanted neither a Danton nor a Robespierre. It discovered Mr Watson, and it has made the most of the discovery.

It is not too much to say that this man, who was intended to be nothing, has become the most important political figure in the English-speaking world--or, at least, of the English-speaking world south of the Equator. That is not to assert that he has been the most talked of, or has wielded the most power. But the movement that he leads in Australia is the most momentous political-cum-social movement known to the present age, and in Australia it has gone further than in any other part of the British dominions. It happened three years ago, for the first time on record, that a man who was the avowed leader of a socialistic party--for the Labour party is socialistic in aim and purpose, if not always in detail and in method--was chosen as the political head of four million English-speaking people. That man was Watson. Without much notice and without much warning, he found himself raised to a giddy height. All eyes were upon him, all responsibility rested with him, all honours that were the gift of the electors were showered on his head. It was a trying situation, and the predictions of immediate and disastrous failure were numerous. However, the expected did not happen, and the deluge, though on general principles due to arrive, held off. Mr Watson as head of the Commonwealth Ministry acted precisely as he had acted when private member, or when leader of the irrepressible Labour party. Probably he knew that a tremendous head of limelight was being turned upon him; but he gave no outward evidence of the knowledge. If he suffered from self-consciousness, he kept the circumstance from the world.

The man’s whole career is an object lesson in the importance of keeping cool. Any study of the ex-compositor’s character must impress one fact on the mind. It is a terrible thing to suffer from what the French call _tête montée_; it is a magnificent thing to be able to keep cool. Whether Mr Watson’s coolness is the result of temperament or of will power, might be difficult to say. It is more than probable that it is due to the latter. So far as temperament is concerned, the man is impressionable, and many sided. You can tell by glancing at his good-looking, half-oval, half-practical face, that he has sensuous as well as mental perceptions; that he is not naturally a stoic; that the taste of power and pleasure is not wasted on him; that “the laurel, the palms, the pæan” are to him something more than names. If it were merely a question of temperament, he could let himself go with the best or the worst of us. But the man is master of himself. If Nature and preliminary training have not given him all things; if certain magnetic gifts such as oratorical fire and intellectual fervour are not his; if it be that

Knowledge to his eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll,

it is yet a fact that he has a marvellous faculty for showing the _mens æqua in arduis_, for keeping his head, for being true to himself in every emergency and at any hour. Temperament may have something to do with the faculty; but it seems to be mainly the result of a resolute and altogether admirable will. People who know Mr Watson best have never been able to detect any difference in his manner as applicant for work in Sydney, as political chief of a sectional party, or as head of the Commonwealth Government. He performed the impossible when, for the better part of a session, he led the House of Representatives in the face of a large and hostile majority. A man who listened to the extremists behind him, a man who could not think and reason with bullets whistling all round him, could not have done this for a week. Mr Watson did it for four months, and he did it very well. It is more than likely he will have the opportunity of doing it again.

The fourth member of this famous quartette is Mr George Houston Reid. It is melancholy to think what vast quantities of bad writing and indifferent caricaturing have been called forth by this Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia. Melancholy, because the subject is such a good one that it should have been reserved for adequate and original treatment. It is only possible now to repeat a few truisms which are known and recognised of all men. One of these truisms is that Mr Reid represents the _apotheosis_ of intelligence, the triumph of mind over matter. He is not beautiful, or graceful, or slim, or heroic-looking. No one ever accused him of being a glass of fashion, or a mould of form. The ingenious Mr Crosland tells us that a man has no business with a figure; that it is his duty to look like a clothes-prop in youth, and like a balloon in middle life. Mr Reid and Mr Crosland are at one in this matter, with the difference that the Premier has put into practice what the mentally and physically smaller person merely suggested. Certain well-meaning but bat-eyed individuals have accused the ex-Prime Minister of being inconsistent; they point out--good, worthy souls!--that he is found talking in favour of a project at one time, and talking against it at another. These people, well meaning as they are, do not understand. Mr Reid, for his part, does understand. We see here the whole secret of his vast popularity, of his wonderful rise to power. He UNDERSTANDS. When one recollects how few people understand, there is little further to be said.

The ex-Prime Minister is a wonderful talker; and for want of anything better to talk to, he talks to public audiences. The general impression seems to be that he enjoys himself on these occasions; that he likes to hear the plaudits that greet his appearance, the laughter that echoes to his jests, even the interjections that he turns to such good account. But the writer’s opinion, derived not only from watching Mr Reid on a platform, but from private conversation with him, is that he knows himself to be mentally adapted for other and better things. What, after all, does the crowd know or care about such gifts of speech, such exquisite verbal delicacy and grace as this man possesses? True, they can appreciate what he gives them, for he is wise enough to give what they require, not what he himself knows to be most select and valuable. Whenever I think of what is rare and beautiful in the mind or heart of woman; whenever I think of those gracious and grateful beings who flitted across this planet and died in disappointment because they had found no intellectual mate; I regret that a mysterious Providence did not put me in their path after endowing me with Mr Reid’s gift of speech. It is a pity that such talent should be dissipated among the vulgar; it is a pity that it should be harnessed to any political engine; it is ten times a pity that it should have so often to put up with the wrong audience, the wrong hour, and the wrong place.

Like all great men, Mr Reid has been responsible for some erroneous impressions. One of the most popular and widespread of these is that he is, by instinct and temperament, a humorist. Nothing could be further from the truth. The late head of the Commonwealth Government is undoubtedly the most serious man that the political exigencies of Australia have ever produced. He has too much insight, too much intelligence not to be serious. Every man who possesses the faculty of making other people laugh must do so by presenting an effective contrast to their own habit of thought. In other words, he must be as different as possible from themselves. Mr Reid is entirely different in thought and disposition from ninety-nine out of every hundred of those who listen to him and laugh with him. _They_ are volatile, fickle, amusement-loving; _he_ is none of these. That is the reason why, when he throws for their delectation certain verbal pictures on a rhetorical screen, they laugh with such boisterous mirth and such riotous abandon. The reason why Mr Reid came to take up the _rôle_ of jester is easy to understand. If he followed out his own inclinations, he would be either a transcendental philosopher, or a poet of the mystic school. He would never speak a word about politics, and he would never make a joke. He is too clever not to recognise the essential meanness of politics; he is too sombre in disposition not to revolt from the tinkling merriment of a crowd. But he has never got quite free from the idea that success is a desirable thing to obtain. It is the one infirmity that sticks to him. He knows that distinction for a man, physically constituted as he is, is not to be won through the channels of transcendentalism, or by the agency of the lofty rhyme. He knows that for a clever man the best and surest way to success is to play the fool. That is why he has talked on such a commonplace subject as politics to tens of thousands of people; that is why he has so successfully, so brilliantly played the fool.

As already stated, Mr Reid is too intelligent to be wedded exclusively to any one faith or shibboleth. But if he has one political leaning over another, it is in favour of Protection. It is true there is a popular idea to the contrary; but then many popular ideas flourish on the most unsubstantial foundations. There is no difficulty whatever in showing that Mr Reid’s one marked characteristic as a statesman is his fondness for Protection. The importers of New South Wales chose to make him their idol. It was not for him to object. It was apparent to him as an intelligent man that if the importer was no better, he was no worse than other people. So it came about that Mr Reid and Free Trade went hand in hand for quite a number of years. But to be strictly devoted to one faith, is to argue oneself blind to the merits of other faiths, and therefore mentally defective. To prove his catholicity of taste, Mr Reid put a few doses of Protection into the Free Trade dish which his fellow colonists were asking at his hands. When at a later stage the invitation came to him to drop fiscalism and merge his free trade in the high-tariffism of Mr Deakin, he gladly did so. There is no doubt that he was getting tired of the old formulas. How could it be otherwise? Mr Reid owes it to himself, and to his reputation as a man of broad views, to give Protection a turn, and in that direction, beyond doubt, his desire lies. There is a foolish idea, fatuously and blatantly insisted upon by newspaper writers, that, because a man has been harnessed to a party at one stage of his career he should remain harnessed to it for ever. The only universal genius is he who has come to recognise the essential quackery and futility of all political faiths now being foisted upon the community. I do not assert that Mr Reid is, or is not, a universal genius. I merely repeat that he is a man who understands. It is possible to look forward to the time when circumstances, and his own desire to be impartial, will bring him out as the champion of Protection in Australia. This is necessary to the complete and artistic balancing of his career. No one knows this better than himself. And whatever we say of G. H. Reid, whatever we think of him, whatever broad or narrow views we take of him, we are bound to admit that he touches nothing, and has touched nothing, he does not adorn.

XIII

THE IMPERIALIST

Regions Cæsar never knew Thy posterity shall sway.

The Imperialist plays an important part in the life of Australia. His influence is to be detected everywhere. It is not always proclaimed in words or manifested in deeds; but, like a subtle essence, it runs through every political and social institution of the country. No one can pretend to understand what goes on in this part of the world unless he makes allowance for the curious blending of the Imperialistic with the local point of view. The two currents do not always flow in unison; but if it were a question of opposing forces, the Imperialist would always carry the day. He is predominant both in the political and in the social world. He is much stronger than his occasional rival, the little “Australian.” He colours most of the legislation, and insensibly affects the habit of thought of the people. Take away the Imperialist from Australia, or even reduce him to a minority, and an entirely new set of conditions, a fresh pathway of national development, would come immediately into view.

The man who calls himself by this term, or even the man who, without assertiveness, acknowledges that it applies to him, is apt to believe that all who differ from him are small-souled and narrow-minded persons. He is inclined to be egotistically self-righteous. He talks of Imperialism as though it were not merely a justifiable political creed, but something superior in the realm of philosophy, something splendid in the domain of morals. The word itself is a large and impressive one. It conjures up wide expanses of territory, great vistas of achievement. It affords unrivalled opportunities for mouth-filling rhetoric and for fine-sounding, platform periods. Its every association is calculated to impress the receptive mind. There need be no astonishment, therefore, at the fact that those who confine themselves to the local point of view, and acknowledge no fondness for world-stretching dominions, are not highly regarded by the majority in Australia.

Yet it is by no means difficult to show that the essential doctrines of Imperialism are incapable of defence either from the rationalist or from the ethical standpoint. They are, in fact, both illogical and immoral. They are illogical, because they are based on the assumption that a wide expanse of territory can be better looked after by a central authority, than can a relatively small district. They ignore the elementary truth that every community is the best judge of its own requirements. The Imperialist is not satisfied to let any one alone. Every race, as far as practicable, must come under the yoke which he himself acknowledges. Every individual must slumber under the form of Government which he himself prescribes. He believes, quite illogically, that his own prestige is in some fashion enhanced whenever his countrymen dethrone another potentate or lay hands on a fresh piece of territory. He is convinced that the welfare of Australia is enhanced by the circumstance that certain gentlemen, living at a very remote distance, can, if they so choose, veto some of our most important pieces of legislation, and overset some of our most intimate concerns.

If it be admitted, as it must be, that the underlying principle of Imperialism is illogical, it will also be admitted that the same principle is decidedly immoral. Every empire is more or less built up by the sword. Every empire is more or less maintained in the same fashion. And it is an elementary truth that the sword and morality have nothing to do with each other. We can judge these things better from a distance. We can see plainly enough that it was wrong and immoral of Xerxes to wish to add to his territories by annexing Greece; that it was grasping of Julius Cæsar to reach out after Gaul and Britain; that it was wicked of Napoleon to covet Egypt; and that it was sinful of Russia to lay hands on Poland and Manchuria. But we are not prepared to speak thus definitely of the moral significance of another nation’s attitude towards Cape Colony and Egypt and India. What we do say in that connection, is that the white man has a burden to shoulder and a duty to accomplish. We are inclined to get angry, and to call the strict moralist--whenever he attempts to dictate the policy of nations--a narrow-minded, insufferable prig. And so, as a matter of fact, he may be. But no harm would be done by admitting, in a general way, that the doctrines of Imperialism and of morality are not precisely identical.

But neither cold reason nor hard rules of conduct can build up and vitalise a nation. There is such a quality as _sentiment_; and it is just this quality that gives the Imperialist his pre-eminent place. For sentiment always has been, and always will be, the most useful and valuable, just as it is the most illogical, faculty that an individual or a nation can possess. When we recollect what it has given us in the domain of poetry, of imaginative prose, of art, of music, of sculpture, we recognise that logic does not deserve to be mentioned with it in the same breath. Sentiment is even greater than morality, because it creates its own morality--a morality very much finer and very much truer than that of any conventional school. The Imperialist, therefore, in spite of his unreason, contains within him a spark of that which illumines and creates. The sentiment of race, the sentiment of religion, the sentiment of patriotism, the sentiment of devotion to an ideal, to a memory, to a national past, to a series of great names, to a battlefield, to a grave--all this is, from the logical point of view, incapable of a moment’s defence. It is fantastic, illusory, absurd. But when one comes to think how unspeakably unlovely would be any existence that was mapped out by reason, and supported by dogma, and guided from infantile beginnings to senile decay, by a cold and brutal calculation of the practical advantages likely to follow on certain acts, one can only feel grateful that the sentimentalist, and not the economist or the calculator, has still the dominating voice in the life of the time.

The Imperialist, therefore, in the sense now being made use of, is a person to be lightly regarded by disciples of Bentham and Bain, and to be warmly admired and applauded by all other sections of the community. This is he who, though he has never been within ten thousand miles of Great Britain, speaks of it as “home,” and incidentally refers to the place of his birth as a land of exile. This is he who, a few years ago, talked often of the necessity of wiping out the memory of Majuba, and who even now does not like to be reminded of Nicholson’s Nek and Magersfontein and the Tugela River. As a member of the human race he might be proud to think that at these places some farmers, his fellow-beings, performed praiseworthy feats in the face of tremendous odds. But the Imperialist assumes that the feats were performed by the wrong people, and is not proud of them. This is he who, by virtue of some curious and unintelligible process, manages to feel himself a larger and more sublime personality because of the fact that, long before he was born, men wearing red uniforms and living at the opposite end of the world purchased with their lives the barren glory of Badajoz, and stood unshaken through the fiery ordeal of Waterloo. And this is he who refers to such and such an action as conceived in the interests of that large and vague thing known as the Empire; who is fond of talking about what “we” ought to do in Afghanistan, and what should be “our” policy in Cochin China; who sublimely ignores the fact that neither he himself, nor the community in which he lives, has any more to do with Afghanistan and Cochin China than it has with the North Pole or the mountains of the Moon.